Month: April 2016

There’s a lot of new content on Australian streaming services this week, and if you ever wanted to check out a free trial of Presto, now’s the perfect time to do it. In addition to the first season of Empire, the show that was the rare hit and kept building its audience after its premiere, seasons four and five of The Good Wife are dropping on Presto this Sunday (coincidentally my birthday). Seasons four and five of The Good Wife include the best stretch of episodes in the series’ run, from “Red Team, Blue Team” well into season five. Also dropping on Presto this Sunday: 48 films. Yes, I counted them. Stan has an Amy Schumer stand-up special and Lawrence Leung’s Choose Your Own Adventure, while Netflix has two original productions in Ricky Gervais’ Special Correspondents and true crime documentary Team Foxcatcher dropping later today. The Netflix production I’m most excited about is Marseille, the first original French language show on the streaming service, all of which drops on Thursday. There’s a lot of good content this week.

I’ll be reviewing the pilots in the ABC’s new venture, Comedy Showroom.Ronny Chieng – International Student aired on the ABC at 9pm last night, and you can watch all six pilots on iview. Viewers can vote for their favourite pilots to be ordered to series.

Image courtesy of the ABC.

From the first shot of International Student, I knew that it was filmed at Melbourne University, where I studied for five years. I recognised every building and pathway, and it made me nostalgic for my university days. The only nitpicks I have for this show are location related, but it’s a reflection of Chieng’s time at the university, where he studied Commerce and Law. He graduated the year I started my Bachelors Degree, and things have changed a lot at the university in terms of the way courses are structured. What hasn’t changed is the culture of the university, which is completely accurate.

The Good Wife was my favourite television drama for four or five years, and its series finale is airing in a couple of weeks after seven seasons. In its sixth season, The Good Wife went from ‘must see TV’ to ‘check The A.V. Club and I’ll watch it if the grade’s good.’ I stopped watching the final season after the fourth episode. The first five seasons weren’t without flaws (there were some dud episodes, for sure), but there was nothing like it when it was at the top of its game. So when its end was announced a couple of months ago, it was a relief that CBS wasn’t planning to stretch it out. Two years ago, cancellation was my biggest fear, because my favourite show was at the top of its game. Noel’s article highlights what made The Good Wife the ‘Great’ Wife, and the reasons for its creative success in season five became what dragged the show down in its last two seasons (plus there was a misguided election arc, and suddenly characters were making decisions that only made sense for plot reasons). It’s a great article, and Noel expresses many fans’ frustrations with the show very well. I hope to write something about the show after the series finale, but who knows. The show has changed so much this season that I don’t know if I’ll recognise it when I watch the finale. All I know is that the first five and a bit seasons of this show were dynamite, and I’m sure I’ll do a rewatch eventually, even if it’s only partial.

Notes:

I’ve been trying to post this for about 20 hours, after discovering that for some reason my computer doesn’t want to access my blog. I haven’t fixed the problem, but the Press This button seems to be working again, which is something. I probably won’t be able to reply to comments though.

I responded that it’s a comedy show that’s sort of about food, and that’s all you really need to know about The Katering Show, except for the fact that it’s great. If you can give me a one sentence description of The Katering Show that’s better than that, I’ll be very grateful. The Katering Show follows comedians Kate McLennan and Kate McCartney. McLennan is an ‘intolerable foodie’ and McCartney is intolerant of many foods, and she doesn’t care about cooking. At all. Most of the show’s humour is derived from the odd couple chemistry between the two, and its great. In Australia, you can watch both seasons of The Katering Show on iview, and if you’re not Australian, the first season is on YouTube, as is this ‘apology video’ regarding the geoblock on season two.

Your weekly streeaming guide for Australia! The fourth season of Orphan Black premieres today, and I also write about The Mindy Project, ET and Containment, which is replacing iZombie on The CW and Stan’s schedule. If you’re a comedy fan, the new season of Kimmy Schmidt just dropped on Netflix, and all of The Katering Show is available on iview.

I’m now writing streaming guides for what’s new on Australian television each week. I highlight 3-4 shows, and everything else is listed below. Fun times ahead! Also: next week is a really good one with the second seasons of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt and The Katering Show, and if you’re more in the mood to bawl your eyes out, go and watch Inside Out on Netflix.